Ornate
by Wizadora123
Summary: During a feast at the castle, Aro comes across a Singer. Aro x OC, movie-verse, Volturi only. Rated T for gore. Enjoy!


_**AN: okay guys, so this is just something i found hidden on a memory stick from many moons ago; let me know what you think and if there's any incline of interest, i'll continue it :)**_

_**anyone here from the Dark Knight Rises bane fic, condemned, and anyone come over from my Walking Dead Merle & Daryl fic 'Imprisoned', a big hello & welcome back! :D**_

**Chapter One: **

**Grandeur**

The group filed in through the corridor. Behind the desk, Bianca, the new secretarial recruit, smiled broadly at the visitors, each of which had a 'VOLTERRA TOURS' badge wrapped around their necks. Heidi, in her impossibly high heels, strode down the hall, red vinyl jacket squeaking.

"This way, please," she grinned, motioning to the stairs beside the elevator. There was roughly thirty-two of them, Heidi had denounced from her head count. Aro would be a little disappointed, she thought. Last time she'd managed to hook forty eight. She'd make up for it on her next round.

"Look at that, mom!" Said a young American boy, pointing to a statue at the bottom of the stairs. It was granite black, a cloaked figure shielding it's face from a ray of light which broke through a window in the parallel wall.

"Cool!" Said his sister, going up and poking the statue.

"Kids, don't touch!" Their father barked, pulling the little girl back.

"Oh, don't worry," Heidi smiled, "it's perfectly okay. Vampires have been an essential point of Volterra's culture for over three thousand years now."

"Really?" Asked an older woman, Canadian by the sound of her accent, snapping a picture of the statue. Heidi winced back from the florescent glare a little too quickly.

"Well, let's hope there's none about today," joked a British boy of about nineteen. Surprised by the lack of response, he cringed back slightly.

"Tough crowd."

The girl next to him, in an oxblood skirt, stifled a giggle and elbowed him in the side, grinning at the floorboards.

Heidi smiled.

"Oh, they're long gone now," she cooed, "the martyred Saint Marcus cleansed them from the land along time ago." She tried not to laugh at her own lie, and ushered the group along, hanging back until each of them had passed. With a grimace, she passed the statue- her skin faintly glittered in the light as she went.

"Now, I must warn you all- I'm afraid in this next room, no photographs are allowed. And please- try your best not to touch anything..."

Worming through the excitable crowd, she leaned a slender hand against the bow of one of the large mahogany rooms which lead into the base of the castle's torrent.

"We are about to enter the Throne Room; the oldest- and most extravagant- room in the towers. I'm sure you'll all find it thoroughly... Invigorating."

With a final gleaming smile, Heidi threw back the heavy wooden doors- with far more ease than one uninitiated would expect from a woman of her stature. As the group filed in, marveling at the gold-leaving entwined around the pillars, and the deep purple cashmere drapes which cascaded from the high ceiling, Heidi took her place at the side of the room, next to Demitri. He winked at her and she repressed a grin.

The bemused crowd, most still captivated by the sheer elegance of the room, hadn't yet taken any notice of the three throned men at the head of the room.

"Welcome, dear guests! Welcome to Volterra!" The man in the central seat stood and clapped his hands together once.

The 'guests' all directed their attention to him in unison- most marvelling at the sheer presence the man held. He was of average build, wearing a tailored black suit with a matte red tie and an almost shield-shaped pendant around his neck on a thick, rope-like golden chain. His hair was near black, mid-length and swept back off his angular face. He had eyes which were a dull sort of granite colour, yet his most extraordinary quality was the appearance of his skin. It was utterly immaculate not a blemish in sight- yet was white as paper, and looked to be as thin. Brittle, perhaps, like a wafer of ceramic or blistering paint- an idea came into the mind of the Girl in the red skirt that if you touched him for too sharply, he might just chip. And he was beautiful, like the others they would come to notice. His face was not attractive in a conventional sense, yet the featured seemed- lifted, heightened to perfection, almost, as though they had been carved and manipulated into something aesthetically captivating. Each of the others haunting the room had equally enchanting faces, oddly beautiful, yet none practiced this conformity more than the elegant, strange faces of the three central figures of the room.

"Oh, it is wonderful to have visitors again," said the leading figure, gleaming a diamond-hard smile at the crowd.

"If you could please just step back from the doors a little- that's it," he continued, rolling his papery wrist, and the crowd shuffled forwards with slightly confused expressions. Once they had moved, Demitri and Felix swept behind them, bolting the heavy mahogany doors.

"Thank you," the beaming man in the dark suit smiled. "We've been having some issues with the heating, you see, and it does take such a long time to get this place to the right temperature- wouldn't want to let all that warmth escape!"

_What warmth?! It's freezing in here, _thought the British boy, only just noticing the drop in temperature from the hallway. He fiddled with the tag around his neck as the overtly polite man continued to speak. As the boy looked around, he became aware of the cloaked figures stationed around the room- all stood completely motionless, stone as statues. All had the same pallor complexions as the man addressing them, but their skin didn't seem to have the same almost iridescent wafery quality._ Budget must not be big enough,_ he thought, smiling to himself.

"I haven't introduced myself yet- how rude of me! My name is Aro, leader of the Volturi."

The audience to his little charade whispered eagerly amongst themselves, supposedly catching on to the act.

"We have lived here for centuries, my brothers and I-" Aro continued, waving a hand in the direction of the two ancients behind him. Caius rolled his eyes, hands clinging to the sides of his chair, tensed. He had sat through this charade a thousand times over, yet Aro insisted on these ceremonious theatricalities every time, even if he himself was ravenous. Caius looked over to his other brother;

Marcus, as usual, looked bored.

The Visitors chuckled universally, nodding as the whole thing tied together.

"The Vampires of old," Aro smirked. Felix gave a low chuckle from the side of the crowd.

"With a cast this big, how can the tours be free?" The British boy asked his friend.

"I dunno," she whispered back, not wanting to interrupt the show, "but the make-up looks bloody brilliant."

"Meh, just a few contact lenses and some face paint," he shrugged dismissively and she shushed him, turning back to listen to the hauntingly captivating man.

"Are you a vampire?!" Asked the excitable young American boy, and Aro turned his entire body towards him in one sweeping movement.

"Yes, my dear," he smiled, ghosting closer, touching the fingertips of each hand together. He hissed theatrically, bearing his teeth. "Vampires."

The crowd chortled again, and Aro joined in with them, his laughter crisp and light above that of the humans. The boy's sister clutched to her mother, who reassuringly said,

"don't worry, sweet-heart. They're just acting."

The girl's big brother smirked upon hearing this, turning back to Aro.

"If you're a real vampire, _prove it,_" he demanded cockily; "turn into a bat."

Aro laughed hysterically, making the girl's skin crawl unexpectedly. She's never heard someone laugh so... manically before. Though it was an almost vulgar outburst, in some perverse way it was quite enchanting.

"That silly old tale! Just a ridiculous rumor we've circulated in order to keep our true secrets safe." Aro whisped his eyes over the crowd.

"Much like the story about sleeping in coffins, wouldn't you know? And you'd never guess the whole sunlight-"

"Aro," snapped Caius' voice, agitated and loud over the enthusiastic vampire's timid allure.

"I think you've played with your food quite enough."

There was a long pause of silence, in which Aro's previously bright expression turned to one less lustrous eyebrows knotted together in immediate thought. He pressed one finger to his chin lightly and rolled on his heels a moment.

"Yes, I suppose your right." He gave a clear laugh, which ruptured the framework of the room. "I am overly inclined to stand on ceremony!"

He swept his head around to his brothers, and when he turned back to the tourists he was radiating a new smile, fanning out the fingers of his right hand and tapping his wrist gently.

"I do get carried away- my apologies, dear ones."

The little American girl was beginning to cry now, clinging to her mother's legs.

"I'm sorry," the woman said in her thick accent, sounding slightly embarrassed "I think she's a little young for this kind of thing yet. Would you mind if I just took her outside?"

"Oh, dear," said Aro, his expression faltering into one of genuine discontent, "...I'm afraid that won't be possible."

The tone in which he said it, though whimsical and genuine, was enough to instantly silence the room.

"You see- and this is most unfortunate- but we were rather hoping you could all stay a little while longer."

Before anyone could make any more of this statement or respond adequately, a shadowed figure stepped through the silence, a small, grey-cloaked creature which glided into the path of Aro. A boyish framed, angelic-faced girl peered up at the dark-suited man from underneath the hood of the cloak with wide, innocent eyes. Without even looking over at her, he raised his long fingered hand gently up to waist-level, palm-down.

The girl placed two tiny fingers upon the back of his bone white hand, and for a few seconds the murky granite-colored eyes of the man paled and seemed to glaze over. He smiled, patting the slender fingers atop his hand with his own.

"Thank you, my dearest Jane," he span, "I'd almost forgot- Felix, would you care to retrieve Renata from the dormatries and tell her dinner is prepared? I'm sure she wouldn't want to miss out on such a feast."

"A feast?!," laughed the British boy, trying to humor the situation, although he was feeling rather wary and uncomfortable now, though the grin on his face stayed frozen. "Sounds good to me. What are we having?"

Demitri failed to stifle his laughter, and it broke through the room like a hammer against concrete. Heidi grinned, lowering her head to hide her own glee.

"Composure, brother," Aro reminded him kindly, the scolding delicate and well-meaning as icing sugar on fairy cakes.

"You might not like what's on the menu," Felix grinned, defying Aro's previous warning to Demitri.

Aro's eyes rolled gently around the room and he rocked lightly on the balls of his feet for a moment.

The tightly-gathered crowd was now starting to twitch with anxiety, none of the group feeling comfortable any longer. This acting was too expressive, to indulgent for them to remember it for what it was; _Just _acting. The daughter of the American girl whimpered. Her mother tried soothing her again, far quieter than she had before.

"Well, then," chimed Aro, slightly deflated by the intrusion of his guard, "I suppose that's enough for today. Enjoy, boys and girls."

With a delicate sway he turned on his heel, pausing. The entire room fell quiet- the guests were unsure as of what to do. Did that mean leave?

The Volturi stood stationary, unsure as to who would make the first move. All stood slightly tensed, ready to spring as soon as someone else had. They'd had plenty of time to choose their first meals whilst Aro had been caught up in his theatrics- personally, Felix was aiming for a dark girl at the back of the group whom he thought might be South African- she smelled delicious. Then it would be the American woman, then the Girl in the red skirt...

The audience of Aro's performance, completely uneasy and confused, clapped sparingly for a few seconds, comically backing up to the door. As soon as the Canadian woman's hand touched the door, Demitri was there behind her- before the group had a chance to even gasp in shock, he had his fingers tied round her throat, had cracked her neck with one twist and dropped the body to the floor.

The room flooded with a universal, harmonious outcry. The woman's husband dropped to her side, and with one swift move, Demitri brought his face forward upon his knee and snapped his neck, too.

Less than a moment later, the entire Volturi guard- bar the three leaders- had sprung into action, each taking hold of their chosen victims.

Desperate for his own kill, Demitri grabbed hold of the two he had killed and ran them over to Marcus, as was his duty- even the smell of human blood was not enough to draw Marcus from his shell anymore, so Aro had appointed the two most brutish guard members as delivery boys. They took alternate turns in who would deliver- unfortunately for Demitri, Felix had taken last week's round.

Demitri dumped the bodies at Marcus' feet, gave a quick respectful nod then darted back into the fray. Marcus glanced down in an uninterested manner at the two bodies, crumpled and twisted at his feet. He moved one with his foot and resumed his stare at the opposite wall.

Little Jane, frenzied from the atmosphere, stalked her second pray- she had already killed the small American boy, whilst Alec had took the younger girl. Stalking for her next victim, Jane sniffed the air- all of the surviving humans, about thirty at this point, had crowded around the thick mahogany doors, desperately scraping for a way out- their tangent screams pierced the crisp air, and the confusion of already spilt blood, sweat and fear made it difficult for Jane to decipher which would be the most satisfying.

Deciding, she pounced upon the back of a man, pulled his head to the side by his hair and quickly sunk her teeth into the soft fold of his neck. When he began to struggle, she sharply kneed him in the back, splintering his spinal cord, then used the force of her free arm to wring his neck. The body went limp and fell to the floor, Jane with it. She drank quickly and eagerly, sucking at the wound she had created, hunched closely over her kill- in this frenzied atmosphere, she knew the risks of one of the larger vampires- mainly, Demitri and Felix- finding the smell of the blood of her human more appealing than their own catch, and starting a fight over it.

Aro still stood motionless, fingertips pressed together against his lips in thought, turned away from the bloody confusion, facing the seats of his brothers. Marcus still sat, arms either side of the chair, staring at the wall with disinterest. Caius had long disappeared into the massacre, and Aro suspected he was perhaps on his third course by now. Still he stood, brow curled, hair draped either side of his immaculate face.

"If you want it," advised Marcus mysteriously, voice breathy and cracked as though this may be the first time he had spoken all day, "you shall have to be quick about it."

Aro looked to his brother, eyes slightly glazed, and gave a slow nod.

Alec stalked a robust man backwards into the great concave depression where the thick metal drainage grate lay- the man's foot caught into one of the deep holes, and he fell backwards, then Alec pounced.

Heidi had her slender fingers gripped around the throat of a young tourist, who she proceeded to smash into the ground before piercing them through with her carnivorous teeth, drawing out the life in the form of tangy, metallic red.

Felix ripped the aorta loose as he withdrew his teeth from the South African girl, and the veins draped loosely down the side of her neck like tape recorder film which had unravelled. She gave one last shuddering, wispy breath then went completely limp, chest caved in from the force Felix had used to pin her to the ground in his urgency for blood. A little escaped blood seeped through the thin fabric of her shirt, where the splintered ribs had pierced the skin. He always preferred days like this, when Heidi brought them to the base of the torrents- that way, they were so deep underground that there was no need to 'silence' them before the meal for fear of their screams being heard. Drinking the prey whilst it was still alive- having some form of struggle, weak as it was- was far more satisfying than drinking from the dead.

Felix sprang upwards and scoured for his next meal- there were only fifteen or so left now. He could see Demitri over the other side of the throne room, with the weakly flexing body of the American woman pinned against the marble wall, screaming in the most hysterical way as Demitri drank the life from her via her left wrist. The woman was staring manically at three mangled bodies pooled in the center of the room, just behind the still stationary Aro- that of her husband, son and daughter. She seemed not to notice that Demitri was drinking her dry, her only struggle that of wanting to reach the carcasses.

Felix looked away from Demitri and his food, instead hunting quickly for his own; he smelt the thick, metallic air, tanged with salt, and decided that- of the last few surrounding the door- the clownish British boy seemed most appetizing He was clutched at the back of the desperate crew still trying to break the barricade of the huge doors, arms secured tight around his female friend. Both were in violent tears which bled down their blotched faces, shaking uncontrollably as they still fought with the doors. Felix grinned, then darted his way over the cast-off bodies in the room so that he was stood behind the unknowing pair. In true comedic fashion, he tapped the boy lightly on the shoulder with his huge hand, and the pair instantaneously jumped around asthough they were conjoined. Looming over them, Felix brought up his enormous hand and shoved the boy backwards and up into the air by a tight grip on his neck- momentarily the girl was lifted with him, then her grip failed and she dropped back to the ground. Demitri bared his teeth, ignoring the flaying arms of the girl trying to push him away from her friend, and set himself for the kill, slamming the boy face-down into the ground. The moment before he could sink down and tear flesh, Caius shot to his side, hunched and growling. Felix, drawn by blood-lust, instinctively growled back, but then remembered his place in the order and, with much reluctance, backed away from his catch. The snow white of his hair gleaming under the orifice's light, Caius continued to show teeth and release the rumble in his chest until Felix was a good ten yards back. He gnashed his teeth once then looked down at his stolen prey, drawing the boy up to standing position by his shoulders- at which point the distorted boy swung a punch at Caius, crying out loud as his bones made contact with the opalescent, unchangeable skin of the Volturi's face. More anger than thirst flaring up in the Ancient's eyes, Caius took a handful of the boys hair and crushed him too his knees, before kicking them out the wrong way- cracking both his shins. With an agonizing scream the boy crumpled to the ground and the girl pounced upon the vampire, taking his silver-spun hair in both hands and pulling as hard as possible, all whilst kicking at his frame. Agitated and rage-brimmed, Caius ripped back an arm and grabbed the girl around the wrist- she gasped then screamed a raw cry as he crunched the bones in his clenched fist. He swung her backwards and then flung her across the room, where she gave a congealed scream before slamming dramatically into the short side-podium of steps which lead up to the seats of the Ancients, head smacking into unconsciousness against the top marble step. A trickle of blood drained down from her scalp. Aro held his breath.

Felix watched in annoyance as Caius drank from the British boy, whose struggle was limited to cries of the girls' name and a desperate grappling to hold onto life. Caius' sadistic nature would not allow for a quick death, and he was sure to crack and dislocate as many bones as possible before he finally drained the boy.

Demitri finished off the hysterical woman, whose every last ounce of energy seemed to die in one quick second- one millisecond she was howling for her family, the next she was not. Quickly, Demitri let go of the body and, rather than crumpling where she stood, the woman fell back in a spectacularly ceremonious fashion into the red velvet drapes, which seemed to swallow her body so that only her blood-stained shoes revealed her final resting place underneath the billowing fabric.

Demitri smelt a very strong sweet, almost tangy blood on the air, which he recognized to be a stronger version of the Girl in the red skirt- had someone let her blood? He looked up to meet Felix's eye, whom he sensed had the same idea he did. The two found the body of the unconscious bleeding girl in less that a second- lying where Caius had thrown her, left temple now bleeding rather heavily, appearing to be in the process of regaining consciousness. Demitri winked, and Felix nodded in acceptance of the challenge.

"three-" he mouthed,

"Two-" Demitri added.

Before the countdown could finish, both vampires sprang at the wounded human. Barley inches from her, the two suddenly collapsed, crumpling in amongst the drained bodies in sudden agony- little Jane stood a distance away beside Aro, small hands clasped in front of her as she kept her now vibrant red eyes on the hulking pair. Releasing them from her influence, the two vampires' muscles gave in and for a moment they lay on the stone floor, atop the mangled corpses, groaning.

Felix pulled his huge form to his feet, followed shortly by Demitri. They looked to Jane, angry yet uneasy, for explanation.

She stepped forwards, heels clicking, and stationed herself to the side of the two men.

She stared passively in Felix's direction and muttered,

"Guard the human. Make sure no-one else tries to drink from her."

Felix furrowed his brow and looked down at Jane, arms folded across his huge chest.

"What?"

Jane looked up into his wide face momentarily then resumed her glazed forwards glance.

"Aro's orders."

With that information in toll, however vague it might be, Felix slumped over to the bleeding girl, who was now trying to sit straight, expression dazed and uneasy, as though she were a spider who had just lost its legs.

He was quite sated by his other indulgences, and so did not find it greatly difficult to abstain from the bleeding meal underneath him. With one thick hand, he reached down and collared the human, wrenching her upwards with great ease. She gave a little gasp, having not even realized Felix was looming over her, and flayed helplessly for a few seconds, utterly dazed, before stirring back into unconsciousness and caving in against his chest. Felix pulled her away from himself, holding her at arm's length as she drooped like a rag-doll in his grip, her red blood red skirt swishing at the hemline. Heidi looked up from her prey- the fourth remaining human- and gave a questioning glance at Felix. He rolled his eyes in response, and Heidi resumed gulping at her dessert.

Alec, Caius and Demitri finished off the remaining three humans- the last one standing looked around for a moment in hopeless bewilderment before Demitri finally pounced. His screams had lasted only momentarily as the vampire unhooked his main arteries, then the room fell almost silent for a few seconds.

Caius drifted waif-like back to his seat, beckoning the still-thoughtful Aro, who had not moved since the slaughter had begun, to follow. Swimming from his trance-like state, Aro stepped up to the thrones, but stayed in the same position before his central seat, fingers pressed gently together as he stared thoughtfully at the back wall.

The only surviving human in the room, the girl Felix was supposedly guarding, sprang back into consciousness just in time for the beginning of the clear-up process. This time she seemed far more alert, whining incoherently and attempting a faint struggle, to which Felix dropped her to the floor- it was clear that, now it was apparent she had been kept alive for a reason, no-one would attempt to kill her.

Felix glances over the bodies of the drained humans, searching for survivors, listening for the beating of their fading hearts. He was joined by Alec, Jane, and Demitri, who began to stalk through the mountains of bodies- Heidi trod her way through the sea of corpses, mainly congregated around the doors, unbolted the locks on the exit, wiped the gore from her heeled feet at the door and left the room, shutting the mahogany slabs behind her.

Alec found one of the survivors by his faint heartbeat- a man in his thirties, with dark red hair, matted with his own blood. It looked as if he had been only half drained through the greed of the feast- the remainder of his life-blood was pooling out onto the marble floor, though it no longer appealed, now stale and cold.

The body was shuddering gently- it was clear from his contorted, zoned-out expression that the change from human to vampire had begun via the venom allowed into his veins. His dimly contracting heart pushed it through his system, devouring the human DNA and reconstructing it into something new. However, this tortured, silent human was never to see his startlingly beautiful new life- Alec took him by the head and twisted until the neck detached from the spine, causing the blood-soaked body to go completely limp- Alec watched for a moment longer as the dull red-washed eyes of the human rolled sharply backwards into his skull, then he dropped the corpse and moved on in search of any other stragglers.

Jane had found another, the South-African girl, who was screaming out in pain from the transformation. The cries were quickly earthed as Jane snapped the girl's head swiftly backwards, to which the reeling intended survivor at Felix's feet gave a despairing cry. Near to where Felix stood came a teppered whimper. The human girl's crumpled body eased itself automatically from the marble steps, recognizing the voice to be that of a child- shuddering on her hands and knees, she crawled desperately to where she thought the sound might be coming from- it was the little American boy, sobbing and blood-sheathed, hysterical from the numbing pain at the beginning of the transformation. He lay still on his back, completely unaware of his surroundings, groaning a little. Agonized with exhausting emotion, the girl quivered closer, and carefully took his hands in her own. He was too far gone to notice.

"Please," the girl said, looking up around the room at the cold pale faces, "don't do this. Help him."

Barely conscious of the tiny clipping footsteps nearing her, the girl pressed the child's tiny hands up to her lips and held them there, eyes closed. When she opened them again, it was to the sight of the small hands of Jane reached down. They drew the boy to his knees, swiftly breaking the bone and cartilage running through his neck- the body fell face down, cold and soundless, to the stone floor, and the last surviving human gave a great, breathless cry, as though a piece of her innermost being had been sliced open-

Stunned for a moment, she floated there, quivering with charcoaled vision, as she luminated a wavering glance to all that was happening around her. Overwhelmed by the rancid stench of death and all that had just occurred before her, she swooned for a second, back arching, then bent forward and vomited ungraciously. Almost instantly afterwards her body dropped backwards, blood-blackened forehead lying once more against the cold floor.

There was a moment of silence amongst the vampires. Felix wondered for a second if she might have just unceremoniously expired right there, if all the violated shock might have killed just her stone dead, but then he heard the heavy vibration of her thudding heart buried in her chest and knew this wasn't the case.

In perfect unison, Jane and Alec resumed their places to the side of the Volturi seats. Walking to the center of the hall, being careful to step around the fallen body of the last remaining human, Demitri removed the metal grate from the inverted depression and placed it against one of the marble walls- he then took hold of two of the twisted corpses and dropped them down the drainage shoot, where they landed with a crunch several moments later. He proceeded to haul all of the carcasses to the center of the hall, aided by Felix, and to dump them down the well-like construct and into the darkness below.

The three brothers watched the scene, Caius with a flitting, conscious gaze, Marcus still with his routine boredom, and Aro still in oblivious thought.

Demitri warily approached Marcus' seat, where the two broken-necked unopened corpses still lay on the floor, to ask him whether or not he should dispose of the uneaten meals. Marcus waved him away without so much as having looked at them, thinking for less than a second on their blood, now cold and stagnant, eyes still mistily watching the far-off wall. With a respectful, almost cautious nod, Demitri gathered up the two wasted meals and plunged them into the dark abyss.

Felix picked up the human girl and placed her back on the steps where she'd fell- Aro caught his breath and quickly said, "not there, my dear. A little further off, if you don't mind."

With a shrug, Felix picked the girl back up and carried her into an alcove at the front of the room, further from the ancient vampires.

There came a faint clipping of heels which quickly swept through the doors, and Heidi is stood there, holding two old-looking scullery mops and a large plastic canister of liquid. Wasting no time, she clipped forwards to the center of the room. Felix and Demitri moved to meet her, and she handed each of them a mop. They both walked out of the mahogany doors, moving into the hallway and retrieving two water-filled mop buckets. Taking a side of the room each, they began to sweep the gore of torn human flesh into the middle of the room, pushing the putrid churned-up slop down into the wet drain. Slowly the two worked away at the streaky red stains caked into the sleek stone floor. The porous cement welding the resistant tiles together had absorbed some of the reddish-brown colour of the human life-blood over the centuries, the only betrayal of the inhuman act which occurred on a regular basis in that room.

Heidi, her immaculate skin hidden behind her voluptuous dark waves, unscrewed the lid of the white plastic container in her equally pallid hand and cast it down into the well. With a flick of her wrist she sent the clear liquid cascading down the deep trench after it, where an acidic crackling began; once the canister was drained, she let that fall, too.

For a few moments the room stood silent, all it's inhabitants frozen in wait of dismissal.

"Very well, dear ones," Aro said from his hunched position, voice nasal from keeping his breath drawn in to diminish his own sense of smell. The guard took this to mean they might leave, and Heidi, Alec and Jane all took their leave of the room through the deep-set carved doors.

As soon as it shut behind them, Caius, the sedation of his feed wearing down, demanded answers.

"Aro, what is this?" He demanded, a long wafery finger directed at the human, curled on the floor in anchored slumber.

Aro still seemed deep in thought, leaving the silence unabridged. Caius became impatient, grinding his teeth in wait for his answer.

"Aro has found himself a singer," Marcus explained with a mildly affectionate tone to his evaporating voice, barley a glance to spare for either of his brothers.

Caius remained unsatisfied by Marcus' explanation; in fact, it seemed only to agitate him more.

"That doesn't explain why you have allowed it to live," the blond-headed man continued, his sharp, perfect features condensing into an expression of annoyance, blended with poorly veiled rage- even with this expression of flame, verging on thin hatred, he remained as beautiful as white marble, forever unchanging.

"Peace, brother," Aro swooned, raising one hand in a gesture of foreclosure. Caius glanced down at the human lying on the ground, such an ounce of nothing compared with the entire company of the room- the entire castle, even. There were no redeeming qualities to the girl- she was not beautiful, and Caius hardly imagined there could be any potential in her as a vampire.

The human slurred on the floor. All the eyes in the room except those of Marcus fanned across to her- Caius' held a look of sufferable impatience, Aro seemed acutely interested, Demitri and Felix held expressions of mild amusement.

With a chocked sort of groan the female found her face with her hand, then sore it fit to attempt to raise herself from the collapsed position she had found herself in. She rose like one stumbling from dreamless sleep, faced away from the ancients and the two guard members, looking in bewilderment at the mahogany doors. A tiny gasp emitted her as she seemed to remember the horrors she had witnessed, confusion spreading across her as she witnessed that the floor was clear, clear of the ravaged flesh and wasted blood which she remembered so vividly.

Perhaps it was a dream, she thought. It must have been, of course- how could it have been real? A terrible nightmare.

But then, why was she still in this room?

Across the polished surface of the pallid floor came the heels of Felix at eye-level to the girl, and only the wet, dark-red trim weighting his trouser cuff revealed that all she had seen truly had occurred. In a most spectacular fashion, the girl let out a short-lived sob before unceremoniously collapsing into the stone once more.

_Pathetic._

_**AN: and there we go! one shot or go for it? you decide. thanks for dropping by, R&R, guys! ;D**_


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